Trell is not Autonomy

[Tglassy]

I've been theorizing that Brandon used the same Internal/External Push/Pull dichotomy with the Shards that he did with the metals, but I think I may have had a few mixed up.  Now that I'm seeing Devotion as Love, which is a counterpart to Odium.  That would make Honor and Autonomy (who I believe are Counterparts) into Enhancement Shards, which could make sense, especially since with Honor, it spoke about how Stormlight didn't make one a great warrior, it ENHANCED what was already there.  Also, another interpretation of Dominion would be to Bind Others, which fits as an external version of Honor, making Dominion into an Enhancement Shard as well.  

Looking at it over again, Cultivation seems to be the External version of Ambition.  Ambition is all about building up one's self, while Cultivation is all about building up others.

Endowment is a weird one.  It seems to be an Enhancement Shard, and could be the counterpart to Dominion, but I'm not sure.

Note: I know not every Shard has an opposite intent, but they could have counterparts and groupings.  Similar to how Pewter and Tin aren't opposites, they are merely counterparts.  

 

Here's my current grouping.

Temporal Shards 

External Pulling: Preservation

External Pushing: Ruin 

 

Mental Shards 

Internal Pushing: Devotion

External Pushing: Odium

 

Enhancement Shards

Internal Pulling: Honor/Unity (Bind Self)

Internal Pushing: Autonomy (Unbind self)

External Pulling: Dominion (Bind Others)

?External Pushing: Endowment (Unbind others)

 

Physical Shards

External Pushing: Cultivation - Growth of others

Internal Pushing: Ambition - Self Growth 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Calderis]

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't think any of these shards perfectly align in opposition, even Preservation and Ruin. I don't think Ruin and Cultivation are just flipped versions of each other with Preservation seated in the middle. 

Yes there is a lot of overlap, but I think the Shards generally are so complex, and have such a breadth of scope that any two shards simply being a positive or negative value of the exact same traits seems ludicrous to me. 

This goes back to what I think the Shards are though. Pieces  of what Adonalsium was. 

Ruin as the part of Adonalsium that all things should eventually end, Cultivation in the need for planning and direction, and Preservation as the desire for familiarity and the need to live in the moment. As similar as these things may appear when made manifest, I think they are very different roots. And I most definitely disagree that combining them would in any way grant the Vessels more freedom. I think it would be a Vessel pull in three different directions by three irreconcilable drives. 

[Leyrann]

@Fanghur Rahl I think I also speak for Quantus and Calderis when I say that it's not the definition of the Shards we disagree on, but rather that they would make a grouping of 3. Groupings in Shards are logically 2, 4 or even 8, as those are numbers you can divide 16 by. If you would include groups of 3, you would have a significant asymmetry somewhere, which would mean:

1. A bit of an 'ugly' coordination. It just doesn't feel nice to look at something and have it be asymmetrical. As Quantus said, aesthetically unpleasing.
2. A, to one degree or another, uneven split of Adonalsium, making the 16-way split look coincidental rather than it's neat 2*2*2*2.
3. It's against how Brandon works. His trilogy of trilogies (which admittedly got messed up), the metallic arts, surgebinding, the 10 Stormlight Archive books and even symmetry being so important in Vorin culture all speak to how much he likes symmetry. It would be strange for him to abandon that in a centerpiece of his overarching magnum epos.

So from all three of an artistic position, mathematical position, and (Cosmere-)writer position it simply doesn't make sense.

Edited October 9, 2018 by Leyrann

[animalia]

To add to Fenghur’s post I am going to copy and paste a post of mine from the Cosmere Amino

 

Can we use comparative religion and religious history to predict the Cosmere? I believe we can but only to a point. We can predict broad stroakes but not everything.

 

First of I want to point out that Brandon Sanderson is a big believer in applicability versus allegory, so while he may have certain elements in mind when he makes up the story, by design he does not plan for anything to be one to one. This is so the audience can leave it up to their interpretation, and, more importantly he can have a more interesting story and compelling characters.

 

But know let me tell you what got me started on this. Remember how Harmony’s followers are called the PATHians. Well I recently remembered that [Taoism|https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taoism] is known as the WAY. Also when I thought about Mistborn secret History: I realized that there’s Ironically a good chance, believe it or not, KELSIER of all people arguably takes traits from [Confucius|https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius]. I know that sounds crazy at first but here me out. The article describes the following traits about Confucius. Cultivating knowledge and sincerity for it’s own sake. Confucius also looked to the past when trying to figure out how to build the future.

Also “ the early Confucian tradition, lǐ was doing the proper thing at the proper time, balancing between maintaining existing norms to perpetuate an ethical social fabric, and violating them in order to accomplish ethical good”

And it’s from Confucian Scholars that we get the Mandate of Heaven. Basically  the idea that if a government stops treating people morally that it deserves to be overthrown. Despite this he is often treated as a beacon of conservatism BECAUSE of how he looked fondly at the past. But those who do forget the point that he emphasized MORAL treatment of people above all else. I still recommend reading the full article but think I summed the key points. Now that I have does that remind you of anyone? Because in hindsight it’s clear. Kelsier looked fondly to the past from the first book we met him in. He values seeking knowledge and being sincere for it’s own sake. Kelseir was also capable of playing the role of nobleman when he had to then go out and rob people the next. While it’s not perfect, because again applicability over analogy, with the whole Secret History and the fact that he has survived to Era  2 being revealed I can even see him looking to POTENTIALLY carry out a mandate of heaven type thing at some point. But of course things aren’t that easy to predict first the obvious when, why, and, how. And remember how Brandon Sanderson said how he needed to right the Elantris sequels before Era 3 can begin? Well that’s probably because the other major Religion to have an influence on China was Buddhism. And if you didn’t see the Elantris, life is suffering parallels you are kidding yourself. So yeah we need more information to finish theorycrafting. but I feel we can begin filling in some broad strokes.

[+Child of Hodor]

Quote

@Calderis said: And I most definitely disagree that combining them would in any way grant the Vessels more freedom. I think it would be a Vessel pull in three different directions by three irreconcilable drives. 

They do all clash in a way, but when they are picked up they would synergize into one shard like Harmony did.  It could be one that can't act or it could be something like Acceptance where it understands that growth, preservation and ruin are all natural parts of a life cycle of things (we're missing Birth). Things have to exist in order to be grown or destroyed, death can fuel growth, to preserve some lives you have to kill others. These intents can be complementary and reconciled as part of a greater whole that understands the need for each in their own time. 

CIRCLE OF LIFE SHARD

 

 

Quote

#1

Thanatos17901

If Sazed were to die, would he drop the Shards Ruin and Preservation, or would he drop the Shard Harmony?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent question. The shards are now intermingled, and would take effort to split apart. He would drop Harmony. (This is what Odium feared would happen, by the way.)

 

@Leyrann @Fanghur Rahl

Brandon picked 16 because of how divisible it was. There should be even numbered categories as was said above. As I said in my previous post I think the three Shards do go together, but we just haven't met the 4th one (Ingenuity) that would give us a more pleasing number. 

 

Quote

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)
#1

Aurimus [PENDING REVIEW]

What was the thematic decision behind the number 16? Why did you choose that?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

I really like how divisible it was. It looked really cool when I was playing with things like an Allomantic table and whatnot. It was mostly an aesthetic choice. Like, it just felt right.

Aurimus [PENDING REVIEW]

So was it originally the Shards or the metals you decided on?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

So, I started with the metals. And then expanded out to that, yeah. So what you've gotta remember is, like, I write Elantris without knowledge of the cosmere. I knew I was gonna do something, but I didn't know what I was gonna do. And then I wrote Dragonsteel, and in Dragonsteel I had all sorts of theories and plans, but I never canonized any of that. And when I sat down to write Mistborn, I said, "All right. We're building the cosmere for real now." And before then I had just kind of been winging it. So when I did Aether of Night, which I put Shards in, I was like "Okay, there'll be some of these things, and what-not." Mistborn was, like, the first real cosmere book, if that makes any sense.

 

Edited October 9, 2018 by Child of Hodor

[animalia]

Didn't Brandon ALSO say that a different INDIVIDUAL who picked up Sazed shard's might interpret their intent as DISCORD? that is to NOT encourage the split mind theory. But to say that while the INTENT of the shard is fused. i.e. whoever deals with them will have to deal BOTH intents at once, how they INTERPRET said intent will DEPEND on the individual.

Edited October 9, 2018 by animalia

[+Child of Hodor]

21 minutes ago, animalia said:

Didn't Brandon ALSO say that a different INDIVIDUAL who picked up Sazed shard's might interpret their intent as DISCORD? that is to NOT encourage the split mind theory. But to say that while the INTENT of the shard is fused. i.e. whoever deals with them will have to deal BOTH intents at once, how they INTERPRET said intent will DEPEND on the individual.

That's correct. It became Harmony because of how Sazed felt and thought about them together. Whether these three would be fighting each other within the new shards Intent, paralyzed into inaction or whether they work together as the Elton John Circle of Life Shard TM will be significantly influenced by how the Vessel thinks and feels about them. 

I think Discord would manifest differently as Sazed being able to act, but in a schizoid way. Discord would take a step to preserve and then a step to destroy, possibly destroying the thing he was just protecting. A very busy, chaotic Shard. Harmony doesn't take the first step. 

I think a third way is possible where a Shard created from these three could act confidently on all three because it understands everything has it's place. It is a wise godly perspective:

Quote

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 ESV 

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; ...

Oh look an excuse to link another song!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKP4cfU28vM

 

Quote

Bands of Mourning release party (Jan. 25, 2016)
#23 

Questioner

Last time you said that his name, if it wasn’t Harmony, it would be something else. Is it Discord?

Brandon Sanderson

This is relevant.

Questioner

It is relevant?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

 

Quote

#18 

chasmfriend's friend (Paraphrased)

My friend asked for Brandon to write something about Harmony in her Alloy of Law.

Brandon Sanderson

There's another name Harmony could go by if he weren't able to control the conflict between his halves… *to Zas* Have you guys figured that one out yet? Oh, I'm not going to say anything. You have it on recording… I was pretty sneaky with that one so I don't know if you have it or not.

 

Quote

#1June 17, 2015 Share  Copy

Argent

When Sazed picked up the Shards of Preservation and Ruin, did he actively choose to be known as Harmony (instead of, for example, Balance, or Equilibrium, or Stability), or is there some Cosmeric law that says Preservation + Ruin = Harmony?

Brandon Sanderson

He chose the name, but in part because it FELT right to him.

Argent

Is this similar to how a Shard's "personality" overwrites the Shardholder's over time?

Brandon Sanderson

Similar, yes.

 

Edited October 9, 2018 by Child of Hodor

[Calderis]

1 hour ago, Child of Hodor said:

They do all clash in a way, but when they are picked up they would synergize into one shard like Harmony did. 

They did not synergize in Harmony. His interpretation of both shard makes hold both possible in a kind of balance, but that is a balance in Sazed himself, not in the way the Shards effect him. 

Quote

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Sazed's two Shards do not "cancel out", as Brandon said that it would like being pulled by two huge gravitational tides. You can get to a way that you aren't instantly ripped apart, but that doesn't mean you don't feel it. (When asked what effect the Shards would have on Sazed, Brandon said, "Read Alloy of Law to find out".)

source

This is the entire reason for his paralysis. He has difficulty doing things because any action he tries to take is countered by one Shard or the other. He's forced to try and find the middle ground that isn't opposed by either intent. 

If you add a third shard to that, I think that middle path all but disappears.

Edit: Sazed himself describes them this way. 

Quote

I am finding that the powers I hold are in such conflict that the most simple of actions can be difficult.

 

Edited October 9, 2018 by Calderis

[+Child of Hodor]

The WoB I quoted says they intermingled into a Shard called Harmony which is what would drop if Sazed was killed. Even without the mind of a Vessel keeping them together they would stay together. Yes, this Shard has multiple intents, but all these Shards can be used together because they were all together as Adonalsium who created just about everything in the Cosmere except Scadrial and that was created by Ruin and Preservation working together they created and kept Scadrial in existence for a long time with the idea of destroying it, but having multiple Vessels each only having one intent got in the way. 

Quote

The powers were opposites. As he drew them in, they threatened to annihilate each other. And yet, because he was of one mind on how to use them he could them separate. They could touch each other without destroying each other, if he willed it. For these two powers had been used to create all things. If they fought, they destroyed. If they were used together, they created.  Hero of Ages

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"He'd always seen these powers as opposites, yet as they swirled around Sazed it seemed they actually belonged to one another" Mistborn Secret History

I think it is possible for a Vessel to reconcile all three as part of life and see the need for all three, circle of life. It would take Vessel with the right mindset. 

The Vessel could see them as contradictory Intents and they could all press against each other. The Shard would not act on one because it would seen by the Vessel as counter the other two and result in a relatively passive Shard like Harmony. 

They Vessel could fail to reconcile them and result in an active Shard that acts in a discordant manner.

Or the Vessel could understand that they are all part of the same process and can contribute to each other, like I said above. They can be reconciled as complementary components of a larger whole. 

Edited October 9, 2018 by Child of Hodor

[Calderis]

Sazed has the "right mindset" but the intents still pull him in opposite directions, causing his near paralysis in his own words. 

Additionally, though the Shard have mingled enough to drop as one, there are still lines of segregation. If they were to be split apart, they would almost certainly split into Preservation and Ruin again. 

Quote

CosmereQuestioner

Like Adonalsium, could Harmony split into 2 shards OTHER THAN Ruin/Preservation with the right intent.

You once stated that it is plausible that with a different intent Adonalsium could have shattered into a DIFFERENT 16 shards. You have also said that Harmony is one shard (or could be viewed this way.) My question: Could Harmony split/be split into 2 shards OTHER THAN Ruin/Preservation (yet still complementing/opposite) with the right intent of the splitter?  And if not is this because Harmony is still too invested in Scadrial as Ruin/Preservation?

Brandon Sanderson

Almost anything is possible... but it is very, very unlikely that Harmony would split except back to Ruin/Preservation.

source

If they were truly homogenous, the opposing intents should have fused into something singular, and those lines shouldn't exist. 

Edited October 9, 2018 by Calderis

[+Child of Hodor]

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

They did not synergize in Harmony. His interpretation of both shard makes hold both possible in a kind of balance, but that is a balance in Sazed himself, not in the way the Shards effect him. 

This is the entire reason for his paralysis. He has difficulty doing things because any action he tries to take is countered by one Shard or the other. He's forced to try and find the middle ground that isn't opposed by either intent. 

If you add a third shard to that, I think that middle path all but disappears.

Edit: Sazed himself describes them this way. 

 

If the middle path Sazed found has resulted in his paralysis and adding a third shard would remove that middle path that wouldn't the result be a Shard that can act?

31 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Sazed has the "right mindset" but the intents still pull him in opposite directions, cause his near paralysis in his own words. 

Additionally, though the Shard have mingled enough to drop as one, there are still lines of segregation. If they were to be split apart, they would almost certainly split into Preservation and Ruin again. 

If they were truly homogenous, the opposing intents should have Fused into something singular, and those lines shouldn't exist. 

He doesn't have the right mindset because he's reconciled them to not act. The right mindset is to justify to himself that each intent grow, kill, save can be complementary to the other two in the long run. We kill now to create fertilizer spur growth, we grow, so there is more that can die, we keep some the same to allow others the opportunity to change.  We grow this thing to be strong enough to preserve itself as long as it can until it inevitably ends. 

If a Vessel holding just Ruin can convince themselves to agree to help create life and then to let things live for a while before he gets to kill them, then a Vessel holding these three can justify to themselves each is part of a larger process. 

Edited October 9, 2018 by Child of Hodor

[Ripheus23]

Some WoBs!

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ROSHtafARian

In the Mistborn trilogy, the base 16 Allomantic metals separate into different groups like the Enhancement metals, etc. Given that there are 16 Shards, do they also separate into different groupings as well? For instance, are Shards like Honor and Devotion part of one 'grouping', with Shards like Cultivation and Endowment part of another?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question.

...

RAFO

source

I thought there was a WoB that said there could have been different numbers of Intents as well as different kinds, or something along these lines, but I couldn't find it 

EDIT:

Found it!

Quote

James Furr

If, instead of the 16, there had been 20 members at the shattering of Adonalsium (with the same level of involvedness)...could it have shattered into 20 pieces?

Brandon Sanderson

It's quite possible that a different number could have ended up working.

source

I think this suggests that the Shattering was a "subjective" event, or in this context a highly Cognitive one, where the Vessels' different beliefs about the nature of God helped to determine the incident.

Here's a way to reinterpret the "infinite power" question. There isn't an infinite "amount" of Investiture in the Cosmere even though Investiture is throughout all of infinity. I think this means that the extensity of Investiture is finite, but the intensity isn't necessarily so. There are only certain Physical regions where there are enough "Investiture particles" (not really point-particles but something roughly quantifiable along those lines) to do magic. These sets of quasi-particles can shift across space, attenuate, etc. so doing specific magic becomes more widely possible. Originally, the 16 each inherited the infinite degree of Shard-power, and then 1/16th the measure of the same. Picking up a second Shard doesn't change the degree of the Shard but the extension of its assigned quasi-particle set.

EDIT 2: Thank you @Child of Hodor!

Edited October 9, 2018 by Ripheus23

[Quantus]

15 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't think any of these shards perfectly align in opposition, even Preservation and Ruin. I don't think Ruin and Cultivation are just flipped versions of each other with Preservation seated in the middle. 

Yes there is a lot of overlap, but I think the Shards generally are so complex, and have such a breadth of scope that any two shards simply being a positive or negative value of the exact same traits seems ludicrous to me. 

This goes back to what I think the Shards are though. Pieces  of what Adonalsium was. 

Ruin as the part of Adonalsium that all things should eventually end, Cultivation in the need for planning and direction, and Preservation as the desire for familiarity and the need to live in the moment. As similar as these things may appear when made manifest, I think they are very different roots. And I most definitely disagree that combining them would in any way grant the Vessels more freedom. I think it would be a Vessel pull in three different directions by three irreconcilable drives. 

I agree with at least 90% of this, enough that I want to try again to bring you around to the quadrant model, which I think fits your perspective more than is obvious at first. 

Despite the theory being all about multi-vector polarity, I dont actually think any of the shards have a single direct opposite, or any direct opposites of each other in all but the most vaguely defined senses.  Sure there will be at least one that the same but is aimed Outward instead of Inward or vice versa, and there will be those that are For or Against what they are; but the most polar example we have (Preservation & Ruin) is neither of those (Id say Preservation's most direct opposite is Cultivation being the Outward Temporal Pro- to Preservation's Con-). 

Rather than there being those 16 specific Intents because they were the top 16 personality traits of Adonalsium (or something similar), I think the Intents on their own are more Primal than Complex, and that it is the Vessel's interpretation of the Intent that ends up making them more or less compatible and/or more or less antagonistic.  Look at the examples we know: Honor doesnt conceptually have to be opposed to Autonomy, if there were an agreement to protect one's autonomy; but Honor-As-Unity would have a more fundamental, conceptual problem with the concept of Autonomy (Unless maybe Autonomy got re-interpreted as Privacy to muddy the waters).  Similarly Ruin is described in WOB as like a force of universal Entropy, and that's antagonistic to Preservation, unless maybe if preservation re-interprets their Intent to be preserving the Natural Order or some such.  All that to say the Preservation and Ruin antagonism had more to do with Leras and Ati's interpretation of their own Intents than something that was a foregone conclusion. 

One big thing that makes me lean this way is rather than saying those 16 Intents are specific is that they are Equal in magnitude, and I dont buy that Adonalsium had those and just those traits but in perfect equal measure.  It makes more sense to me that whatever balanced Whole Adonalsium was was broken in equal chunks polarized along the vectors used to break him/it, and that all the complexity in those fundamental sub-sections comes from finite mortal minds attempting to Order and understand these primal polarities.

 

 

[+Child of Hodor]

15 minutes ago, Ripheus23 said:

Some WoBs!

I thought there was a WoB that said there could have been different numbers of Intents as well as different kinds, or something along these lines, but I couldn't find it 

Here it is along with some others. 

Quote

Multi-site Skyward AMA (Oct. 4, 2018)
#68Oct. 5, 2018 Share  Copy

 

James Furr

If, instead of the 16, there had been 20 members at the shattering of Adonalsium (with the same level of involvedness)...could it have shattered into 20 pieces?

Brandon Sanderson

It's quite possible that a different number could have ended up working.

 

Words of Radiance Chicago signing (March 22, 2014)
#27 

Eric

If Adonalsium Shattered with intent, would he always Shatter with the same Shards?

Brandon Sanderson

It is plausible that it could've gone a different way.

Eric

So it could've been different Shards?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that's plausible.

New York Signing (Nov. 16, 2013)
#54

askthepaperclip (paraphrased)

If Adonalsium were to shatter in a parallel universe, would it divide into the same 16 intents?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Um...it...Adonalsium could have been shattered in other ways.

askthepaperclip (paraphrased)

Was there a force determining which way it shattered?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes!

 

Edited October 9, 2018 by Child of Hodor

[Calderis]

1 hour ago, Child of Hodor said:

If the middle path Sazed found has resulted in his paralysis and adding a third shard would remove that middle path that wouldn't the result be a Shard that can act?

He is forced to the middle path because he has no other choice. I'll post the WoB again... 

Quote

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Sazed's two Shards do not "cancel out", as Brandon said that it would like being pulled by two huge gravitational tides. You can get to a way that you aren't instantly ripped apart, but that doesn't mean you don't feel it. (When asked what effect the Shards would have on Sazed, Brandon said, "Read Alloy of Law to find out".)

source

You can't make that stop. His interpretation may influence the manner in which he's pulled, but he will always be pulled. 

1 hour ago, Child of Hodor said:

He doesn't have the right mindset because he's reconciled them to not act. The right mindset is to justify to himself that each intent grow, kill, save can be complementary to the other two in the long run. We kill now to create fertilizer spur growth, we grow, so there is more that can die, we keep some the same to allow others the opportunity to change.  We grow this thing to be strong enough to preserve itself as long as it can until it inevitably ends. 

Then why couldn't Leras stab Elend to prevent Vin from releasing the power and keep the world from changing? 

The longer a Vessel holds a Shard, the more that pressure effects them. He wants to act and can't. That's not being reconciled, that's being bound. 

1 hour ago, Child of Hodor said:

If a Vessel holding just Ruin can convince themselves to agree to help create life and then to let things live for a while before he gets to kill them, then a Vessel holding these three can justify to themselves each is part of a larger process. 

That assumes that the Ati who made the deal was the same Ati we saw. After the thousands of years between those two events, I don't think the deal would have been struck to begin with. 

 

[Fanghur Rahl]

@Calderis “Preservation as the desire for familiarity and the need to live in the moment.”

How on earth do you get that out of what we saw of Preservation in Mistborn? If anything, it’s Ruin that only seemed to care about the short-term, not Fuzz. Preservation was unambiguously described as rivalling even Cultivation in terms of his ability to plan way WAY ahead into the future with phenomenal accuracy, certainly not just living purely in the moment. Planning ahead is not something any one Shard can lay claim to.

I agree that planning ahead is a big aspect of Cultivation (I have absolutely no doubt that her roots run very VERY deep), but I think that’s a result of her intent, not the intent itself; it simply isn’t possible to effectively cultivate/grow anything without careful forethought and planning. But if that actually were the intent, I don’t think that Brandon would have given it the label ‘Cultivation’. It would have been something like ‘Prudence’ or ‘Prescience’ or ‘Perception’.

”Then why couldn't Leras stab Elend to prevent Vin from releasing the power and keep the world from changing?”

Maybe because he wasn’t as intellectually impressive as Sazed was when he first acquired his Shard and thus wasn’t able mike it such that sometimes to preserve you first need to change? Who knows. A similar argument could be made regarding the supposedly kind Ati and Ruin.

[Calderis]

12 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

How on earth do you get that out of what we saw of Preservation in Mistborn?

Because that's not what it was in Mistborn. 

You take that, and separate it from any context, and it becomes stasis. A desire for familiarity become a need for no change whatsoever. 

14 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

agree that planning ahead is a big aspect of Cultivation (I have absolutely no doubt that her roots run very VERY deep), but I think that’s a result of her intent, not the intent itself; it simply isn’t possible to effectively cultivate/grow anything without careful forethought and planning. But if that actually were the intent, I don’t think that Brandon would have given it the label ‘Cultivation’. It would have been something like ‘Prudence’ or ‘Prescience’ or ‘Perception’.

I disagree. Again though, that's also because I don't think the names of any of the Shards are accurate. "Cultivation" is this shard filtered through the interpretation of its Vessel, just as I think Honor and Unity are exactly the same Shard. 

16 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

Maybe because he wasn’t as intellectually impressive as Sazed was when he first acquired his Shard and thus wasn’t able mike it such that sometimes to preserve you first need to change? Who knows. A similar argument could be made regarding the supposedly kind Ati and Ruin.

 I doubt intellectual capacity has anything to do with the ability to keep from being warped. It's all about alignment of interpretation (which is not a conscious choice) and the demeanor of the vessel. 

[Fanghur Rahl]

36 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Because that's not what it was in Mistborn. 

You take that, and separate it from any context, and it becomes stasis. A desire for familiarity become a need for no change whatsoever. 

I disagree. Again though, that's also because I don't think the names of any of the Shards are accurate. "Cultivation" is this shard filtered through the interpretation of its Vessel, just as I think Honor and Unity are exactly the same Shard. 

 I doubt intellectual capacity has anything to do with the ability to keep from being warped. It's all about alignment of interpretation (which is not a conscious choice) and the demeanor of the vessel. 

Well, I guess the difference between us is that I generally take the Shard’s intents to be what they say on the tin while you typically don’t. And for all I know you could be right, but at this point I don’t see how it’s anything more than speculation. Ruin is the aspect of God that destroys when it’s time, Preservation is the aspect that preserves and maintains when it’s worth doing so, Cultivation is the aspect that desires its creation to grow and progress, etc. I just don’t see any need to assume that the Shards were completely different (or at least significantly different) while part of Adonalsium than when they were independent.

[Calderis]

25 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

I just don’t see any need to assume that the Shards were completely different (or at least significantly different) while part of Adonalsium than when they were independent.

For the same reason that Odium is "The weight of God's own divine hatred, without the virtues that have it context."

What the are now is the result of some aspect of Adonalsium, both untempered by anything else, and interpreted through the mind of something else. 

Without the cohesive entity to make them one part, they cannot integrated again. Before the Shattering there was no segregation. The where one whole. The split is not as easily mended as shoving them together. Harmony would not be what he is if that were the case. 

[Fanghur Rahl]

9 hours ago, Calderis said:

For the same reason that Odium is "The weight of God's own divine hatred, without the virtues that have it context."

What the are now is the result of some aspect of Adonalsium, both untempered by anything else, and interpreted through the mind of something else. 

Without the cohesive entity to make them one part, they cannot integrated again. Before the Shattering there was no segregation. The where one whole. The split is not as easily mended as shoving them together. Harmony would not be what he is if that were the case. 

Yeah, but the point is that Odium was still hatred while part of Adonalsium, it was simply hatred with context. I mean, I suppose that ‘familiarity’ is at least tangentially similar to ‘preservation’, but it certainly isn’t a synonym of it. You basically suggested that Cultivation was ‘Foresight’ in Adonalsium. No, it was still God’s desire for growth and refinement, but it was tempered by the context of the other 15 Shards. That’s what we disagree on I think.

As for your analogy about each Intent effectively being like a gravitational tidal force pulling on its vessel, I’ll just take that analogy further and point out that in such situations with multiple distinct forces pulling on something in different directions, there’s always a Lagrange Point, a point where the opposing forces effectively nullify each other and leave the thing feeling as if no force is affecting it; this isn’t the case with only one force, but maybe with multiple conflicting intents there is something analogous to this, if the Vessel is wise enough to find it. 

Assuming this analogy holds up, presumably Sazed has found this point, and when he wants to either destroy or preserve, he effectively ‘exits’ the ‘Lagrange Point’ and moves closer to either Ruin or Preservation respectively. Though I’d have to think that if he wanted to do something that both preserved AND destroyed, it’d probably be a lot easier for him since both facets of his new intent would be satisfied.

Edited October 10, 2018 by Fanghur Rahl

[Calderis]

3 hours ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

Yeah, but the point is that Odium was still hatred while part of Adonalsium, it was simply hatred with context. I mean, I suppose that ‘familiarity’ is at least tangentially similar to ‘preservation’, but it certainly isn’t a synonym of it. You basically suggested that Cultivation was ‘Foresight’ in Adonalsium. No, it was still God’s desire for growth and refinement, but it was tempered by the context of the other 15 Shards. That’s what we disagree on I think.

Fair enough. I just think that actual emotional concepts like love and hate are broad and complex enough to be fairly straightforward. 

And I think the three in discussion are specific enough descriptors to fall short of what the actual intent encompasses.

As to Harmony, I don't think you can find a "Lagrange point" between internal drives. The power is a part of him. Wisdom in how he uses the power has nothing to do with it in my opinion. The intents are not something that only limit his actions, they are constant forces that he  never stops experiencing. This is why the warp the personality of the vessel. You can't simply "exit" a balance point between the intents to make it do what you wish. It doesn't care what you wish. It doesn't care what you think or feel. It doesn't care. It is persistent and unavoidable. 

[Fanghur Rahl]

32 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Fair enough. I just think that actual emotional concepts like love and hate are broad and complex enough to be fairly straightforward. 

And I think the three in discussion are specific enough descriptors to fall short of what the actual intent encompasses.

As to Harmony, I don't think you can find a "Lagrange point" between internal drives. The power is a part of him. Wisdom in how he uses the power has nothing to do with it in my opinion. The intents are not something that only limit his actions, they are constant forces that he  never stops experiencing. This is why the warp the personality of the vessel. You can't simply "exit" a balance point between the intents to make it do what you wish. It doesn't care what you wish. It doesn't care what you think or feel. It doesn't care. It is persistent and unavoidable. 

Well, like I pointed out once before, logically there would have to be some degree of ‘dilution’ of the strength of each ‘intentic’ compulsion in Harmony’s case, simply because the two intents are directly opposed to one-another, and you can’t have 100% A and 100% ~A.

And if each intent is only 50% as strong as it otherwise would have, it might make it easier to resist. And inthst vein, adding Cultivation to the mix might further ‘dilute’ it to only 33.3% as strong. Like I say, I have no idea if this is actually how it would work, but logically something like this would have to be the case, if only because the alternative would seem to imply a logical contradiction.

[Calderis]

4 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

Well, like I pointed out once before, logically there would have to be some degree of ‘dilution’ of the strength of each ‘intentic’ compulsion in Harmony’s case, simply because the two intents are directly opposed to one-another, and you can’t have 100% A and 100% ~A.

And this is the part I disagree with. There is no "maximum pressure applied" these forces are additive. 

If you have a weight on a string pressing you from the left with a hundred pounds of force, and another on your right pressing you with a hundred pounds of force, you dont only feel 50 pounds of force from each. One weight on its own would attempt to push you. One on each side and now they attempt to crush you. 

Because as I keep saying with the "gravitational tides" quote, they do not cancel out. There is no lessening of the pressure. Sazed is not freed from either of his intents, and their opposition is the reason for his paralysis. 

He is constrained between to unrelenting forces. He says so himself. 

[Fanghur Rahl]

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

And this is the part I disagree with. There is no "maximum pressure applied" these forces are additive. 

If you have a weight on a string pressing you from the left with a hundred pounds of force, and another on your right pressing you with a hundred pounds of force, you dont only feel 50 pounds of force from each. One weight on its own would attempt to push you. One on each side and now they attempt to crush you. 

Because as I keep saying with the "gravitational tides" quote, they do not cancel out. There is no lessening of the pressure. Sazed is not freed from either of his intents, and their opposition is the reason for his paralysis. 

He is constrained between to unrelenting forces. He says so himself. 

The problem I see with that though is that in the weight analogy the weights are something external to yourself and pressing in on you, whereas in the case of a Shard the Vessel effectively IS the Shard; they effectively transfer their consciousness from their brain to the Investiture. So Sazed would be experiencing it as effectively a feeling of compulsion akin to what an OCD feels. In this case, the opposing compulsions of ‘preserve’ and ‘degrade’. In someone only holding a single Shard, the compulsion would feel all-consuming, whereas with someone holding Ruin and Preservation this simply could not be the case. It may still be strong enough that it’s very hard to resist, but I simply can’t see how it could be equally strong as, say, Ruin or Preservation individually. Am I explaining myself properly here? This is getting pretty abstract.

As for the matter of how Ruin, Preservation and Cultivation relate, let’s just describe it as three points on a line, with Ruin and Cultivation on either end and Preservation in the middle. It may be a little oversimplistic, but I don’t think it’s incorrect.

Edited October 10, 2018 by Fanghur Rahl

[TrдVψLшR 0115]

23 hours ago, Calderis said:

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't think any of these shards perfectly align in opposition, even Preservation and Ruin. I don't think Ruin and Cultivation are just flipped versions of each other with Preservation seated in the middle. 

Yes there is a lot of overlap, but I think the Shards generally are so complex, and have such a breadth of scope that any two shards simply being a positive or negative value of the exact same traits seems ludicrous to me. 

This goes back to what I think the Shards are though. Pieces  of what Adonalsium was. 

Ruin as the part of Adonalsium that all things should eventually end, Cultivation in the need for planning and direction, and Preservation as the desire for familiarity and the need to live in the moment. As similar as these things may appear when made manifest, I think they are very different roots. And I most definitely disagree that combining them would in any way grant the Vessels more freedom. I think it would be a Vessel pull in three different directions by three irreconcilable drives. 

I love that explanation. Here’s the wob it makes me think of.

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)
#4 

 

 

Shardbound [PENDING REVIEW]

Do all Shards have a direct paired opposite intent...

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

No, I would say no, they do not all have a directly paired opposite intent.                                                  I also think that Brandon can be tricky when it comes to the names of the shards. In the case of Odium it is very evident that whatever the shard would truly be named, he has his own ideas about what he wants to be called. And that is the info Brandon gives us as he reveals the story from different perspectives of people w their own motives not to mention lack of the complete picture.

Edited October 10, 2018 by PelekinikeleT